Bonkers Blog July 2015

Councillor Steven Hall may have drawn the short straw when chairmanships were
being handed out. The very words ‘People’ and ‘Places’ almost guarantee a lively
debate for anyone interested in what is going on around town. On the other hand
‘Resources’ sounds a bit too heavy going and often the meeting is.

On
Wednesday evening the sun must have got to me because I went to the Civic
Offices expecting to listen to the Audit Committee at work and was directed to the
main chamber where it was immediately obvious that a much bigger meeting was on
the point of starting. As a result I was without my long lens and worse was that
I had arranged another appointment for 9:15.

The meeting once again erred towards the boring end of the spectrum and as is often the
case I wondered how councillors remain alert. Many of them do thus proving that
being a councillor is not always the sinecure one might imagine.

There are of course always exceptions to any rule. One of chairman Hall’s first
announcements was to say that vice-chairmen Andy Dourmoush
and Maxine Fothergill would not be making any sort of report. Both are
recipients of leader Teresa O’Neill’s largesse introduced last year as
compensation for her
wrecking the
established format of scrutiny meetings. £750 per meeting each is the going rate for doing nothing.
Councillor Hall said that no reports will be the new norm.

Councillor Fothergill was nevertheless kept quite busy because her car had
unfortunately broken down on the way to the meeting. She is absent from the picture below because she spent a good part of
the meeting nipping outside to use her phone. I hope she got home OK.

New committee member councillor June Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) was the
first Tory to ask a question or more correctly make a suggestion. She wanted to
see a report on how well the General Election arrangements went. The chairman
agreed to have one added to the next Agenda.

Councillor Rob Leitch (Conservative, Sidcup) had noticed that £335,000 of projected savings for this year
had slipped behind schedule and asked the Finance Director to comment. After a long delay she said
that she had been working on “a funding gap of £30 million for future years” and 98% of 2015/16’s target
(£14·8m.) was secure but if the 2% did slip she was looking for alternative savings.

Councillor Gill MacDonald (Labour, Belvedere) was sad to note that 28% of savings
for 2015/16 was to come from Adults’ Services at a time when the population is
aging. A thoughtful Ms. Griffin eventually began her answer with a reminder that the cuts had
been agreed by the council and went on to say that Adults’ Services represented
the largest part of the budget. Then, to wrap things up, she said that the cut had
been agreed by the council in March.

Substitute member Mabel Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) referred to the 10%
saving target for 2015/16 in Children’s Services. She was told that all of it
would come from efficiency savings.

Councillor John Husband (Labour, Lesnes Abbey) wanted to know what consequences
may have arisen from the two day a week closure of Erith Town Hall. Ms. Griffin
said she “hadn’t seen any particular issues” but is “continuing to monitor”.
Savings are on course to reach £70,000 a year.

Labour leader Alan Deadman (North End) was concerned about the degree of cuts to
staff in HR and Legal, it could lead to the council being mismanaged. The
chairman reminded him that the cuts had been made some time ago and cabinet
member Don Massey said that as the council reduced in size so must the core departments.

Councillor Daniel Francis made his fourth - or maybe it was his fifth -
intervention by referring to the possible merger of back office facilities with
Newham and Havering. He was congratulated for having found the Romford
Recorder’s report, I suspect
he spotted it
somewhere else. He was told that those negotiations were at an extremely
early stage (a Memorandum of Understanding) but that some functions in Bexley now
require less than one specialist post and the possibility of mergers must be
examined. As many as 21 back office services could be merged.

Councillor Francis slipped in for the umpteenth time a complaint that the
scheduling of meetings too often makes effective scrutiny impossible. His
complaint fell on stony ground as it always does.

Councillor Husband referred to one of the biggest savings (£1·2 million) listed
under cabinet member Linda Bailey’s Regeneration and Growth portfolio. Chairman
Hall ruled that Strategic Planning & Regeneration Resources was not a resource
for the Resources Committee.

The plan is to make all non-statutory functions
self-financing and despite the
Chairman’s ruling that Regeneration Resources were not relevant to the Resources
Committee, the Finance Director commented.

She said a lot of the relevant teams work towards bringing inward investment to
the borough. Greater flexibility from staff with appropriate skills could
further enhance investment levels and that would pay for the services.

The Status Report (a collection of cross London statistics
produced by the organisation known as London Councils) came in for the
usual criticism. The problem is that it is always out of date and incomplete. It
was alleged that it was inaccurate too because London councils are not compelled
to submit their results and figures. Naturally councils that score badly are
inclined not to submit any figures. Councillor Louie French (Conservative,
Falconwood & Welling) said it was not worth the paper it was written on -
especially now that it is printed grey on grey as councillor Slaughter remarked
with a repeat of her complaint from the night before.

Cabinet member Don Massey said that some councils deliberately duck out and do
not play ball with their submissions to the Status Report.

London Councils is an organisation of which Teresa O’Neill O.B.E. is the
vice-chairman. Out of date. Behind the times. Erroneous.

Councillor Mabel Ogundayo asked a question relating to agency staffing levels in
Children’s Services. Chairman Hall ruled that this HR related question was not
appropriate to his committee but fortunately the Finance Director offered a
brief response. The poor figures “will take quite some time to change”. The
future will be “challenging”. “I don’t think we can be above average in
everything any longer given our financial situation”.

At this point I had to leave having muddled my dates and double booked evening
appointments. My intention was to complete this report by reference to the
webcast. Unfortunately whilst my own recording made in a corner of the room
comes through loud and clear the council’s webcast is, depending on speaker, at
too low a volume for me to hear and it fails to make clear what
happened during the surprise event that took place soon after my departure - apart from the amusement registered on Alison Griffin’s face.

It is evident that two proposals for future Sub-Committees
were offered, one from Labour and another from the Conservatives, however councillor Francis proposed that
both were taken on board.

This so bamboozled the assembled councillors that some of them believed they would be voting
against their own proposal if they voted for Daniel Francis’ dual approach,
which if lost would have resulted in separate votes. However it was passed by five votes
to two (councillors Pollard and Leaf) with the remaining Tories abstaining in utter confusion.
(This paragraph only obtained from a cooperative councillor.)

In some ways I find this a shame. I can never again report that Labour proposals
are always rejected with a 100% block vote. A double blow because only the night before I
lost the right to say that all public consultations, delegations and petitions
are ignored, though the whole
Splash Park story has yet to come out. At least
not on BiB. You don’t really think that councillor Craske has metamorphosed into Santa Claus do you?

You may have noticed that a high proportion of questions originate from Labour
sources. Those featured above are chosen subjectively on their supposed wider
interest, if a proper count was undertaken the proportion might be very different. It would
most likely be even higher than what may be seen above. There is no doubt about
which party is most prepared to allow things to pass unchallenged. The docile majority party.